Rene stud, Culcairn, NSW, wins grand champion ram and ewe

Rene stud principal Scott Mitchell, Culcairn, NSW, said they aimed to breed their own style of Charollais sheep to suit the Culcairn climate.

"Our slogan is 'the shape of the future', we believe there's a huge future for them in the lambing industry within Australia," he said.

"Over in Europe they're in a small country and it's hobby farmers who don't need to travel as far.

"We need the rams to travel to be able to do their job, so we want to try and put extra length in them.

"I went over there about five or six years ago and discovered we could put extra length on them without losing that muscling and structure that they have."

Mr Mitchell said the grand champion ram and ewe were a very similar style of sheep, with good muscle and ideal Charollais attributes.

"They're chock-full of meat and have really good Charollais attributes, good type of head with all the fleshing down the outside leg and muscle through the twist," he said.

Mr Mitchell said the breed's society, Australian Charollais Sheep Association, officially started about a year ago with a growing interest in the high-meat yield sheep.

"We had good support in the gallery which is promising, it's a new breed and people are interested in them and we had a lot of people who hadn't heard of them," he said.

"That's what it's all about, get them out to show and promote them and show people what it's all about."

Judge Graham Wilson said he believed the grand champion ram was "very, very correct" and stood up well, with dense wool and clean points.

"His back legs were very square, and he had a lovely shape, when you look from behind he's very smooth through the shoulders, there's no lumps and bumps or anything like that," he said.

"He was very hard to fault, a very correct ram."

Mr Wilson said the Charollais had good wool, were strong on their feet and the grand champion ewe was particularly impressive.

"They don't break down as much, if the sheep is correct structurally they will last much stronger," he said.

"She's a lovely ewe and a great example of the breed, I'm more impressed today than I thought I was going to be."

Mr Wilson said he was blown away by the Rene stud quality, and looked forward to seeing the breed's future growth within the lamb industry.

"They stand up so well and they're so appropriate for today's demand, they want the muscling and they want the type-sire sheep," he said.

"I was very surprised when [the ram] came up, he was a very good quality sheep and if they breed more rams like that, they'll have no trouble selling them in the prime lamb industry.

"They have a great future."